Quotes by Julian Barnes

Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.

What does the novel do? It tells beautiful, shapely lies which enclose hard, exact truths.

In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art.

“History isnt the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. Its more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious or defeated.”

“And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability.”

“Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, dont you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not lifes business.”

“This was long before the term single-parent family came into use; back then it was a broken home...”

“Art is the whisper of history, heard above the noise of time.”

“Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us times malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing--until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return.”

“Though why should we expect age to mellow us? If it isnt lifes business to reward merit, why should it be lifes business to give us warm, comfortable feelings towards its end? What possible evolutionary purpose could nostalgia serve?”

“Is there anything more plausible than a second hand?”

“[Flaubert] didn’t just hate the railway as such; he hated the way it flattered people with the illusion of progress. What was the point of scientific advance without moral advance? The railway would merely permit more people to move about, meet and be stupid together.”

“Is despair wrong? Isn’t it the natural condition of life after a certain age? … After a number of events, what is there left but repetition and diminishment? Who wants to go on living? The eccentric, the religious, the artistic (sometimes); those with a false sense of their own worth. Soft cheeses collapse; firm cheeses indurate. Both go mouldy.”

“To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.”

“Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness lies in the imagination, not the act. Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.”

“He always thought that Touies long illness would somehow prepare him for her death. He always imagined that grief anf guilt, if they followed, would be more clear-edged, more defined, more finite. Instead they seem like weather, like clouds constantly re-forming into new shapes, blown by nameless, unidentifiable winds.”

“Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.”